Sleep Alone
by chezchuckles
Summary: Second in the Sleep series. Necessary to have read only Dash Away, but I suggest reading these in the order posted on my profile. A prequel in the chronology of the Dash Universe.
1. Chapter 1

**Sleep Alone**

* * *

_I could sleep_  
_when I lived alone._

_Is there a ghost in my house?_

_-Is There A Ghost, Band of Horses_

* * *

It's easier here. Easier to breathe. One foot in and one foot out.

She stands in his hallway with it trembling through her, all of it, making her feel ragged and undone.

One foot in.

One foot out.

She's immobile. She's always been like this when it comes to relationships; she even told him as much. She's not sure why she started this thing with Castle.

Okay, not true.

She knows why.

Whatever it is that she's one foot in with him - it's both of them. Together. And damn, it won't be changing any time soon - it won't change ever.

Because now she's pregnant.

Fuck.

What in the world have they done?

* * *

He's the one who opens the door. Lobby security informed him that she was coming up, and then she didn't, and he expected something like this, but to see it in front of his eyes, feel it in his chest like the blade of an axe-

fuck.

What has she done?

She's on her own two feet, stock still in the middle of the hallway outside his apartment door, her hand pressed over her eyes.

She promised. She promised him she wouldn't-

"Kate."

"Shit."

"You need to come inside," he says quietly. "We have to talk."

"I can't."

And then she leaves.

* * *

He can't sleep.

He can't make it stop aching, everything. He wants to be sure that she won't - wouldn't - but he can't be. He thought he knew her, but this is different. This rearranges their lives, completely alters Kate's plan - but he's done it before. He knows how it goes.

He can be a single parent again; he's strong enough. He just needs her to _keep _it.

He can't sleep and he has to know.

So he calls her at one in the morning, surprised as hell when she answers.

* * *

He's the one person she can't bear to talk about this with, and the one man she should, and still, the only one who matters. Also?

She doesn't know when it happened, but he's become the one she works things out with. Not Lanie, not her father, but Rick Castle.

She knows that if he could turn it off for a moment, stop. . .doubting or worrying or panicking or whatever it is he's doing, then they could be thorough about this, rational, figure it out.

It would really be helpful if she could have her partner on this.

So when he calls, she answers.

Grateful and sick and frayed with insomnia.

* * *

"We have to talk," he murmurs.

Her silence is a pronouncement.

"Kate. You said you wouldn't-"

"I'm not. I wouldn't." And then he can hear her long breath in and a grunt. "What the hell happened, Castle? We were careful. Mostly. Except for that first - but this happened six weeks ago and I-"

"Kate," he says quietly, not sure what it will do. No point in rehashing this. Over and over again. It's done.

"It's done," she echoes his thoughts, and he hears the resignation in her voice.

"Now we should-"

"No, see, Castle, there's decisions, assumptions being made in that 'we' that I haven't even figured out yet."

I versus we. "You're not in this with me?"

"Well, I'm. . ."

Her silence is worse than the not knowing. He wants to go back to not knowing. He wants to go back to finding her in his bed in the morning and brushing the single strand of hair behind her ear and caressing her jaw, and the thing is? He doesn't at all mind having to postpone that motion to get up and see to the baby crying over the monitor.

"Kate. Be in this with me."

"I don't know how."

"Weren't you before?"

"I don't know what-"

Shit.

He swallows, eyes closing, and ends the call without looking, without good-bye.

* * *

"You look like you haven't slept all week," he says when she opens her door.

She misses him - or well, she misses his body in her bed. She misses touching him when she wakes up too early, misses feeling him wake as well. She needs something she's not getting, and so she'll make do with this.

"Castle," she says, not in response, just in warning maybe. And then slides her hands to his hip, his abs, fingers flirting. He jerks, but his eyes are dark and terrible on hers, wanting just as much, and she knows they'll be using each other, but she doesn't care.

"Kate," he mutters. His hands are already at her back and slipping under her shirt, tugging it up and off. She lets him look, lets his eyes rove while she stalks closer, jerks the tails of his oxford out of his pants.

He pops open her bra without another word, but lets it hang there as he starts crowding her back to her bedroom. She wriggles to get it off, makes him gasp with the friction between them, and then drags a thigh up his, hooks it around his hip, makes him work for it.

Castle gets both hands under her, hoists her up against him; she feels her back hit the wall, the solid and demanding press of him.

"This is stupid," he mutters. "This is the worst idea-"

"Too late now," she breathes out, hazing his ear with her teeth.

His hips rock into hers. "Definitely too late. I need you - I need this - I don't care what happens, I need-"

"Shut up," she growls, feels the shame of it wash through her body, stain her cheeks, and even though Castle doesn't comment, doesn't even stop, his fingers making inroads on her pants, she gentles the moment, brings her mouth to his jaw with a soft and delicate touch that has him groaning.

"Kate-"

"Sorry, I'm sorry. I don't mean that. Talk to me, Castle." She feels him pressing her open, wider, and cradles the side of his face in her hand, thumb brushing his lips. This isn't who she is, this isn't how she likes it, but she's been lonely without him, lonely with the weight of all the things she can't begin to figure out, lonely with the darkness and the responsibility and the burden of not knowing.

And afraid.

And it's so wonderful to have him like this, together; they banish all the darkness.

"Talk to me, Castle. I can't think about it - but this, this I can-"

He's working her pants off, sliding his palm down her thigh, rocking against her in a rhythm that feels like love.

"I want this, Kate," he cries out. "I want you. I want everything. The baby, you, the way you love me - I know you love me, I know you-"

"I know," she murmurs into his mouth, slipping her tongue inside, stroking gently, easing the ache she knows must be splitting him wide. "I know."

He pauses with his hand against her, his breath hot on her forehead, and he pulls back to look at her. "Then not this. Not like this."

She drops her legs from around him, body trembling, close to the edge, and guides him back into her bedroom.

"Your turn to talk," he murmurs, his mouth at her neck and sucking lightly. His hands splays at her belly, strokes with the tips of his fingers so that she's arching, gasping. "Talk to me, Kate."

But she doesn't have words for what he needs to hear, and even less for what he wants to know. She only has the motion of them together, and the way he feels, and how she needs it to survive.

"I want you," she breathes out finally, the only true thing she can say.

"I'm already here," he says, and his fingers are light against her face, a quirk of his eyebrow hinting at another meaning-

Oh jeez, she's pregnant. He's already here.

* * *

"Can't we just do _this_?" she whispers, her cheek pressed to his shoulder as he strokes his fingers through her hair, off her damp neck. "I like this."

He laughs, a rumble in his chest that she feels in her body. "This is what got us. . .where we are."

"I thought you were about to say this is what got us in trouble."

"Are we in trouble?" he murmurs, his fingers at her neck, paused.

Kate has to think about that one. Not for long, because she knows what her whole being craves, but she just doesn't know if it's right. Or even healthy. "I don't want to be," she says finally.

"I don't either."

"It's not like this - goes away," she says, disconcerted with a conversation that requires so much nakedness. Not of her body, but of everything else. She wants to press her face into his armpit and breathe. Oh, gross, mistake- "Did you not shower today, Castle?"

He grunts and squeezes his arm so that it traps her there; she struggles, laughing at him, and moves away, propping her chin on his sternum.

"I. . .didn't actually," he mumbles, not looking at her.

"You didn't?"

He shrugs, and she gets it suddenly. She hasn't spoken to him in a couple of days, a week, and he-

"Oh," she murmurs, lowers her mouth to his chest in a soft kiss. "I didn't intend to - it wasn't what I - you hung up on _me-_"

She stops, presses her cheek to his shoulder once more, can't think of anything to complete that sentence really. Except she didn't mean to make him not shower, to make him hole up in his loft and be unsociable and not himself and. . .sad.

"I'm not sure I know what else to do," he says on a sigh. "I just - you know what I want, Kate."

Except. . .

"What do you want?" she says softly, closing her eyes.

"You."

She waits and then it comes.

"And I want this baby, Kate. I can't - I don't know what happens if you don't, except that I do, and I-"

"I do."

He goes still, but his fingers crunch in her hair, tightly, his arm curling up around her neck. "Kate?"

"Castle, that's not the problem," she murmurs, taking in a ragged breath. "Wanting it - that's not the problem."

"What. . .what is the problem?"

How can she tell him that she doesn't know if, in twenty years, she'll still want. . .this?

The baby, it's hers. It's hers, and she's already - it's already not up for discussion. But just how much of her future is she willing to give away? To him?

His arm is tense behind her neck, but suddenly he shifts, turning into her, his mouth pressing into hers in a kiss that makes her breathless. His hand drifts to her stomach, strokes across her belly button, and oh God, oh God, she has no idea, no clue how they're going to do this, but she needs it, she needs him, it has to work-

"I can make this work, Kate," he murmurs, nips her bottom lip. "Give me the chance to make it work."

But she can't answer him, she can't answer him when his tongue, when his body, when his-

_oh_ - this

this is all she can think about.

* * *

"Hey," she says, smiling at him as he sits down at her desk.

Castle's chest eases and he hands her coffee. She shoots him a strange look, wraps her fingers around it. She looks like she could use the caffeine, too.

"Castle," she murmurs, a question and an admonishment in her voice.

He shifts his eyes to either side, sees they're basically alone in the early morning precinct rush. "You can have 150 to 300 milligrams of caffeine a day."

Before he even finishes that sentence, she's sucking down the coffee, chugging it like they're in the middle of a drinking contest. He laughs, tries to hide the smirk, but she doesn't even look like she cares.

"Ug," she mutters, cradling the cup to her chest. "That was half decaf, wasn't it?"

"About three-fourths decaf."

She wrinkles her nose and rubs at her forehead. He watches her, trying not to look at her with too much interest, too much concern, too much-

anything.

"Thanks," she says quietly. "I needed that."

"You get any sleep after you left?"

She shakes her head, gives him a little shrug. "Can't sleep. It's - it's not even. . .this," she murmurs. "Just can't sleep. Oh." Kate gives a strange little laugh and curls her fingers over the top of the cup, at the plastic lid, her eyes on him. "Actually. Maybe it is because of this?"

"Insomnia as a side effect?"

"Better than morning sickness."

He gives her a crooked grin, relieved at their conversation last night, relieved that she's joking about it. He can wait to ask her to move in with him until later, right? He can wait to ask her to marry him. He can wait. He can.

She's - Kate Beckett is pregnant with his kid. His. She's joking about morning sickness and avoiding caffeine even though it turns her into a zombie. She's carrying his child, keeping it safe and warm and-

"Don't look at me like that," she says softly, her eyes a warning.

"Like what?"

"You're too sappy for your own good, Castle."

"Yeah," he agrees, nodding his head. Still. She's-

"You can't," she insists, leaning forward. "You start looking at me like that all the time, and I'm going to - I'll freak out on you. You know I will. You have _got_ to be cool about this."

"I'm cool," he says, the words tripping over themselves to get out of his mouth and reassure her. "I'm good. I promise. Cool and nonchalant and already moving on."

She raises an eyebrow at him, but just then Esposito shouts at her from across the bullpen and they've got to go, a body, she's pregnant and about to roll out-

"Castle," she warns, a strong and fierce grip on his ear. He feels his knees buckle and catches himself on the edge of the desk. "I am walking a thin line here - I can_not_ take you looking at me like that."

"Apples, woman." He jerks away from her grip, but she's already letting him go, moving past him.

He reaches out and takes her by the hip, stalling her. She lifts a deadly eyebrow but he shakes his head at her.

"You can count on me. I'll do whatever you want, whatever you need, Kate."

Her eyes roll, but he sees the way she's clenching her fists and he realizes that his promise was, unfortunately, more of exactly what she was talking about.

He's got to wait. Wait on her. This can be good, can be so very good, but he's got to be patient and let her come to him.

So when she walks away, heading towards the elevator, he stays put. _Be cool._

Kate turns, giving him a strange look. "Castle. You coming?"

He shakes his head. "No. I've got - thing with Alexis. You go on."

She startles, her step actually falters, but she doesn't come back; she gets on with Esposito and her eyes are on him like she can't figure him out.

That's better.

Let her come to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sleep Alone**

* * *

"Hey, Lanie, what've you got for me?" she asks, stepping up to the empty stainless steel table with her notebook against her hip. She brushes a hand through her hair and sees her friend's climbing eyebrow.

"Uh-huh, we'll get to that," Lanie says slowly. "What's up with you?"

"I got a murder to solve. That's what's up."

"No, honey, I'm talking about this. . .look you got going." Lanie waves her hand at Kate, up and down like she's encompassing the whole outfit. And then the ME's eyes narrow, and she melodramatically glances around. "Where's Castle? I've been seeing you without Writer Boy a lot lately."

"He's out on assignment," Kate says, rolling her eyes. "He's convinced it's a poltergeist and Ryan's out with him. Let Shaggy take care of Scooby for a while."

"Huh," Lanie mutters, hands on her hips. "Well."

"No," Kate says, shaking her head. "Do not tell me you think it's ghosts too. Come on-"

"No, I'm still wondering what the hell is going on with you. You and Castle didn't have a fight?"

Kate closes her mouth.

"You did have a fight?"

"No. We - sort of. It's - we're working on it."

"Then why you look like that?"

"Thanks, Lanie. So encouraging. This is how I always look-"

"Don't start with me. First of all, I don't know why you think you can play me. Was I, or was I not, the first one to notice you two were having sex?"

"Lanie."

"And now this - whatever this is - you look like you been run over. Flattened. And not in a good way."

"Is there a good way?" she muses, lifting an eyebrow back at her friend.

"Don't even try to change the subject. What's going on with you?"

Kate shifts to hold her notebook up against her chest, tries to find the words. She will; she'll get there. It needs to be said. And to someone other than Castle. Make it real, make it really happening.

"I'm pregnant."

"Oh my God, Kate Beckett."

She winces and holds her hand up to her eyes, rubs them as she tries to get a deep breath in.

"It's Castle's," Lanie says, and even the ME knows that isn't in question.

"Yeah."

"So you're keeping it."

She opens her eyes. "Was that a question?"

"Does it need to be a question?"

Kate swallows hard and paces, arms crossed over her chest on top of her notebook. "No. No, it's not a question."

"So you and Castle-"

"I don't know."

"Of course you do. Don't fool yourself. You know. We all know."

Kate pivots and comes back, biting her lip. "He's a good father."

Lanie's face softens. "He is a good father. Honey, you couldn't have done better, if that's what you're worried about."

She shakes her head. "No. Not him. Me."

"Hey," Lanie says, reaching out, snagging her hands. Kate glances at them, surprised by the contact. "You've got help. All of us got your back, Kate. Castle most of all. All you gotta do is look at that man to know he's crazy about you."

Kate nods, her fingers curling up around her friend's.

"You happy about this, Kate?"

She shrugs. "It's - it's terrible timing, Lanie."

"With your life, I don't know when it'd be good timing."

Kate huffs a soft laugh, gives her friend that one. "I don't even - Castle and I aren't - but now we are, I guess."

"You guess. You know you don't have to be. You have his kid, okay, sure. But that doesn't mean you have to be anything."

Her shoulders ease just a fraction, her flight or fight response settling down at the words. But something in her chest thrashes madly, discontent with that.

"Are you happy about this, Kate? Because it's not really fair to either of them to be half-hearted."

Either of them. Castle. Or the baby.

"Lanie." She shrugs again, has to avert her eyes to get control of herself. "Working on it. I'm working on it."

"Telling me is a step in the right direction. Kate. You're gonna have a baby."

Kate presses a hand to her mouth, slides it up to cover her eyes, breathing hard. She has to be fair to them - has to be in this if she's in this.

"Makes it real, doesn't it?" Lanie says gently. "Telling someone."

Kate nods, can't believe she's really cracking apart at work. Not now, not now.

"I was gonna tell you - ME's office is backed up, bodies are coming out my ears. It'll take me a while to get to yours. So. You should take the day. Talk to your dad."

Oh jeez.

"Your dad will be happy for you, Kate." Lanie squeezes her hand. "Even if you can't be."

* * *

Castle stands just inside his loft, not sure what he's supposed to do now.

She called and told him to go home; she was taking a half day. He immediately had to stifle his natural inclinations and let it go. He didn't ask; she didn't offer.

Will she come home with him one of these days? Will she step into the loft behind him carrying their baby, look at him like-

like she used to?

She doesn't look at him like that anymore. Now there's just - horror, and guilt, and fear. There's need, and a healthy amount of lust. But the love that used to paint her face like sunlight - he hasn't seen that in weeks.

Since he confessed that he thought she might be-

Castle pushes off against the door, locking it with a flip of his wrist, and tugs his jacket off, leaving it over the back of the chair. He heads for his study, and a glass of Scotch, determined not to think about it.

He's got to get himself together. This morning held promise, the coffee and her smiles and the tentative truce they've seemed to reach. He can do this; he can wait for her. He'll wait all nine months if that's what it takes.

But she will come home with him.

He pours his drink and takes a thin swallow, lets it burn down his throat slowly. He takes a healthier sip and breathes through it, moves towards his bedroom with the glass held by two fingers.

When crosses the threshold, he sees the wide, rumpled bed and it washes over him in a great wave.

Kate in his bed, the line of her body in the sunlight, the fall of her hair - only now there's a little one next to her, her arm curled around the round head, her lips brushing the soft spot. That bud of a mouth, open as the baby sleeps, the tiny fists, Kate's adoring eyes on the amazing thing they've created.

He drops to his knees, staring at _nothing_, staring at a vision, a dream, the only thing in the world he wants at all, has to have, can't - he can't not have that. Them. Her and their child.

She's having a baby - his baby - she's having his baby but still - still he's afraid that _they_ are not having a baby at all. Only Kate.

Alone in this, like she's always insistently alone in everything.

He rocks back to the wall, a hand over his eyes, feels the wetness leaking out around his fingers and can't stop it, can't push it back.

He's so in love with her. He's so helplessly in love with her. And where that love used to make him feel so strong, so determined, so much better for the loving, now it only makes him a wreck.

"Richard? Richard, what's wrong?"

He glances up to see his mother coming through the doorway, her hands held out to him, kneeling beside him on the floor.

"Mother," he starts, shakes his head at her. She's trying to get him to sit up, but he clutches at her wrist to hold her off, taking deep breaths. "Alexis - she with you?"

"No. No she hasn't - what's going on?" His mother lays her other hand against his shoulder, her eyes worried and roving over his face. "Tell me. Tell me right now."

He laughs, hollow and wrong, and shakes his head again. "Kate's pregnant."

Martha rocks back; he grips her hard to keep her from falling, and she struggles for balance, finally meets his eyes.

"She's not keeping it?"

He blinks and takes in a shuddering breath. "She is. She's keeping it." And it's true; he knows that much. There is - at least - that. And his mother is right. He should be grateful for that.

"What's going on, Richard? Why-"

"What if she won't come home to me? She's so separate, Mother. What if she never wants - wants us to be a family? I don't know if I can do that. I don't know _how_ to do that - let her raise our child on her own without being a part of it - sitting on the sidelines while she isolates herself, makes me less than nothing-"

He stops when he sees the look on his mother's face, the abject misery that cracks behind her eyes.

And then he realizes how it must sound to her - the woman who raised him alone, no father involved-

"Not you," he roughs, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and bringing her against him for a kiss on her temple. "Not you. There was no one there to tell, Mother, no one to _be_ a father. This isn't the same. He doesn't even know. But I do. I know what - I know what I'm losing."

She sits in silence beside him for a long time, his mother, his strong and clever and humorous mother who made a production out of everything in their life, everything, but never once made him think he was at all unwanted.

And he must have been unwanted. At some point, even if it was just a half-second's thought about all she'd have to do and be and strive against - even if it was only a moment, he must have been unwanted. The same things Kate is going through now - she went through then.

"Thank you," he says tightly.

She keeps hold of his hand and squeezes it hard.

"Kate will see," she says finally. "Don't give up on her. It's not easy for her - it's not what she expected. But that doesn't mean it can't be what she wants. In time. You've just got to give her time. You haven't lost anything yet."

He nods, his eyes on his unmade bed - the bed she's shared with him and will - she will - share with him again. No matter how long it takes.

"I'll wait," he says softly. "I'll learn to wait."

* * *

Kate finds him out back, his form dark against the setting sun. He must be fishing, so she keeps her steps quiet as she heads down the little dock towards him.

"Dad."

He half turns to look at her, gives her one of his slow, firm smiles, then pats the wood next to him.

Kate sits down, slides off her shoes, rolls up her jeans. Her father watches as she dips her toes into the lake and slowly relaxes.

"Didn't expect to see you out here this week," he starts, going first.

"Didn't think I'd make it either. But I gotta drive back tonight."

"Where's Rick?"

She shoots him a look, and he's grinning at her. "Ah. How long have you known?"

"Kinda obvious, sweetheart. You two aren't quiet about it."

She sighs and shakes her head. "Well. Gonna get a whole lot louder from here on out."

He's reeling in the line as she says this, and his hands pause as he turns his head to look at her again. "What does that mean? You guys getting married? He should've come talked to me first."

She lifts an eyebrow and he shrugs, goes back to the fishing pole, carefully bringing it in.

"We're not getting married," she says firmly. No way. Not - that would be compounding the issue. Two wrongs don't make a right. Actually, her father always told her that.

"So what's that cryptic remark all about, huh, Katie? Things getting louder."

"Dad. . ."

When he winds up the line, has it secure again, her father puts the pole on the wood behind them, then turns back to her, shading his eyes from the glare of the sun. "Spit it out, Katie."

"I'm pregnant."

He laughs, delight spreading across his features, his smile turning into that wide and careless thing that she remembers from a hundred childhood memories - before her mother was murdered - back when it was spontaneous and easy.

She hasn't seen him so. . ._happy_ in ages.

"Dad?"

"Rick knocked you up." He shakes his head and reaches out to take her hand. "Well. I guess that's one way of doing things. Congratulations, sweetheart."

She stares at him until he tilts his head in silent question.

"You - I - okay," she stumbles out. "You're. . .really happy about this."

"Of course. I'm going to be a grandpa. Oh, well, you don't look so thrilled, but I know you. If anyone's up to the challenge, it's you. Actually, you look a lot like your mother did when she first found out she was pregnant with you. You've got that same pinched look to your mouth."

Kate lets out a startled huff of breath.

"Oh, you knew that, Katie. Your mother told you that you were our little surprise."

"Surprise, yes. Unwanted, no."

"You were never unwanted," he says quietly, his grip tighter now. "There's a difference."

Kate hears the unasked question in that too. "There's a difference," she says quickly, a hand coming up to her ribs as if in protection. She gives her father a look, pressing her lips together.

"Of course there is," he says back, mollifying. "You want him. So you do the best you can-"

"Him?" Castle is-

"Or her."

Him or her. Oh jeez. "Oh God. I'm going to be a terrible mother," she moans, turning into her father and burying her face against his shoulder. "I don't know how to do this. I can't do this."

"You're gonna be just fine, Katie. And you'll have help figuring it out." Her father's hand is warm against her back, soothing. "I'm taking a wild guess that Rick's not really the abandoning type, if his daughter is anything to go by."

She's silent at that, but the panic in her chest eases its fist.

"And, sweetheart, if you don't - if you feel you can't depend on Rick, if it's not going well or you don't - I don't know. But I'm still here. You won't have to be alone this time."

And she knows he means like before - after her mother died and she lost her father to his alcoholism. "Dad-"

"I wasn't there for you when you needed me. But I'm here now. I'll make it up to you, sweetheart. No judgment, no questions asked. You feel like getting away, you feel overwhelmed, you have a fight with Rick - whatever it is. You come to me."

Kate lets out a long breath and finally sits up, her feet stirring in the water as she moves. "Thanks, Dad."

The water is cool, making her chilled, and she pulls her knees up to let the sun dry her skin. Her father is putting his tackle box back together, his fingers sure and certain on the lures, the lines, the odds and ends of his craft.

She puts out her hand and stills him. "Go back to fishing."

"I thought you-"

"I just want to sit here with you for a while," she says quietly. "Then I'll go back."

He has the pole in his hands, and he regards her for a long moment before he smiles at her.

"When it comes time," he starts, his smile growing wider, even sly as he nods at her. "I want to be called Papa."


	3. Chapter 3

**Sleep Alone**

* * *

When she finally gets home, Kate opens a can of green beans and dumps them in a pan even as she's unstrapping her holster and yanking off her mother's ring. The watch is next as the veggies heat up, then she sheds the rest of her clothes and pulls on yoga pants and one of Castle's white undershirts.

Smells like him. Smells comforting.

She pops a pre-natal vitamin, drinks a full glass of water, has to pee. When she comes back, the green beans are ready.

Dinner. Folic acid, baby, just for you.

She should have another glass of water - she's short by about sixteen ounces - but she just can't. She feels like she's drowning in water. To make up for it, she pours a glass of milk and eats green beans one by one out of the pan, spearing them with a fork, standing over the stove.

Castle would-

She sighs and closes her eyes, wipes a hand down her face. What does it matter? She's got to figure out how to stand on her own here; she has to be sure and maintain her independence, her identity. This is the fastest way to getting chained down, the quickest route to hitting a major detour in her life that never ends up going back to where she wants it to be.

Not in the plan, baby.

She chokes down the last of the green beans, feels sick until she drinks the rest of her milk. Better. Probably the pre-natal vitamin; it does that to her when she's tired.

She is so tired.

She heads to her bed after switching off the oven, doesn't even bother rinsing out the pan.

Kate curls on her side and finds herself sinking straight down into sleep for the first time in weeks.

She dreams, violently, about an empty boathouse and the smell of fish rotting in the rain. The darkness and the moist, close air, the smell of her blood clotting, the hard flare of her nostrils as she tries to breathe around the stained gag in her mouth.

She sees him, standing in the doorway, morning light spilling in around him but not giving him enough illumination to see, to know, to get out of there.

And then he does see.

He sees it all.

The rest of it in slow motion - the terrible thing, again, again, again - the man behind him, crowbar in candlelight, the blow as it comes, the heavy body of her partner, _Castle_, hitting the concrete floor.

She sees it all, just as she did then.

Here he is, as he always is, here he is with her, dragged down into the darkness with her, held up to the light with her. Where she is, so he is too.

This man who loves her.

She sees it so clearly.

When the machete comes out, she knows.

She can't go halfway - not when he's all in, not when there is absolutely nothing she can do to keep this man away from her, to make him save himself.

She takes all of him.

* * *

Castle grunts and jerks in his sleep, restless, finds himself awake with his heart pounding.

And then he hears the thing that woke him - the vibration of his phone still plugged into the charger; he grabs it, bleary-eyed, and finds a text.

_Can you let me in?_

Kate. He stumbles up, falls straight down to the floor as his leg gives out, meaty and numb, apparently asleep. He curses under his breath as he rolls to his knees, pushes his body back up.

So weird. He can't feel a thing, and now his right butt cheek is tingling, sharp and angry, his groin half on fire. Shit. This is - ug, was he sleeping on a rock or something?

He has to wait a moment in the doorway of his room before he can feel his foot enough to take correct steps, crippled but manageable. In the living room he finally manages to text her back.

_Of course._

He flips the locks and opens the door and she's there, messily dressed, her hair scraped back in a pony tail that reminds him of both how very young she is, really, and how beautiful the line of her throat, the curves of her ears are.

She's rubbing her thumb along the inside of her wrist, over and over, and the movement hypnotizes him.

The scars.

She walks straight into him, her chest tight against his, and he falls down because of his stupid, numb leg, both of them tumbling to the floor because she expected him to be able to take it, the full weight of her body, and she let go, released, trust fell right into him.

But now she's got this smirk on her lips; she's shaking her head as she lies on top of him on his floor, and her fingers come up to his jaw, her nails lightly scrape at the stubble there.

"I'm afraid," she says slowly, looking into his eyes. "But it's not like there would ever be anyone else. It's not like I'd ever not choose you."

He can't understand a word she's saying; she's heavy and soft and warm over him and she looks like she hasn't slept in weeks, but her hair is full and gorgeous as it falls around him. Her pony tail came out. And now she's looking at him with such. . .love.

"Castle?"

"Yeah," he finally says, not even bothering to try and sit up, just watching the way the darkness shifts in her eyes, the light slowly revealed.

Her fingers touch down on his lips, barely there, making his body burn with that delicious awareness. She shifts her hips over his with a smile that's less arousal and power but more like tenderness, gentleness, a kind of surrender.

"Hey," she murmurs, leaning in to brush her mouth at his lips, fingers still there like she needs the touch as guidance. "I know you're going to drive me crazy. I know I'm going to be stubborn and closed off and confusing. But-"

"But?"

"I want it. All."

* * *

When he falls asleep beside her, it's an act of willpower for Kate not to slip out again, find her clothes, leave him to the darkness.

All or nothing, Kate.

She lies on her back and breathes, his body warm next to hers, and then she turns her head and looks at him, reaches out to trace the line of his arm until her fingers tangle with his.

She told herself this wasn't forever, but who was she kidding?

This was always forever.

For a moment, the stinging grief of never being alone again hits her with a force like a wave slapping over her body. She can never go back to how easy it was before; she's never again allowed the weightlessness, the simplicity, the isolation of having no one to care, no one to worry, no one to not make it back to.

She has him, now. She's had him for a long time.

And now this too.

She lays her other hand on her belly, wishes for a connection, an understanding, acknowledgement of what she's done, doing, something.

But there's just her own skin, and Castle's, and the weight of insomnia in the darkness.

* * *

She knows now that he should've come with her; he should've been there.

At the twelve week appointment, the ultrasound technician couldn't be sure.

But now, today-

Kate trails her fingers over the railing as she mounts the subway stairs, entirely not present in the world around her. She barely registers the sidewalk under her feet, the path of her wandering, the summer heat.

It hits her while she's standing at the corner, waiting for the light. She's downtown near the courthouse where she and Castle gave their testimonies against the Butcher; the sidewalk has the same pattern to it, the people the same forms, as when they walked with their hands tangling, able to breathe cleanly again.

It's the same. And he should be here now, absorbing this with her, sharing. She didn't tell him it was an ultrasound appointment; he had PR stuff for the book tour. It wasn't like she purposefully kept it from him, and he would have been here any other time, but-

She needs to learn how to do this with him.

The crowd blends from rush hour natives to tourists in moments; she's trapped behind a group standing awkwardly in front of a sign, trying to get a photo, so she slips inside a corner drug store in an attempt to cut through to the next block.

She itches to call him now, talk to him, but he deserves it face to face, to see her when she tells him. Her heart is pounding, her mouth dry, but it'll be fine when she sees him.

She cuts through the store with the intent of exiting out the other doors, but she has to sidestep as a couple of people come in. As she waits for the door to clear, she realizes she's standing in front of a display of Yankees gear.

She's looking and not looking at the same time, idly checking out the display because it's Yankees merchandise, idle and not thinking baseball, just this, _this_, all of it rolling over her, when she sees the Yankees jerseys all in a row. Jeter. Number two.

She's reaching out for one before she knows it's her own hand moving, picking it out. She can't - it's so small. Four or five ranges of jerseys, but this tiny thing, stiff, made for a little body.

Her hand is shaking.

She takes it to the register without stopping to think.

* * *

It's stupid, but she can't let go of it.

She's sick with anxiety; it roils in her stomach and makes her mouth dry. No reason; there is absolutely no reason.

Except maybe she's making the biggest - made, she's made - the biggest decision of her life and it's just now hitting her, gripping her tight like a fist, what she's done, doing. What she's doing with him.

And how amazing it feels.

When he opens the door, he's on the phone, but he takes one look at her face and ends the call. She has the bag in her hand, crunched up small, pressed against her chest.

"I found something," she says, stupidly, panic fluttering in her throat and making it hard to breathe.

He smiles at her, a careful, cautious thing that breaks her heart. She's done this to him, made him wary, made him not know how to handle her - she needs _handling_? - but when she offers the plastic bag, he takes it with a crooked and half-hearted smile.

"This about the Dustin case?" he says, his hands unfurling the bag and reaching in. "Did you find-"

He pulls out the toddler-sized jersey - it is just so very small. How tiny it is in Castle's hands, and yet how huge, massive, the biggest thing ever.

He's staring at the jersey, and then his eyes lift to hers, complete incomprehension on his face.

She can barely stand it; it's roaring in her.

"A Yankees jersey," he says, the material in his hand, his eyes flickering from her to the shirt and then back to her again.

Her lips twitch and his face breaks into something she can't name.

"He'll be a fan," she murmurs, her chest thick with awe. Him. In his tiny-

"A boy?" he says then, dazed. His body rocks back, like a blow. "It's a boy. We're having a boy."

His shock is like a live wire inside her, pulls her right up with him. She smiles, feels herself suddenly shy in front of this man who knows her, knows everything, has-

He wraps both arms around her, so tightly, lifts her off her feet in a hug that breaks apart everything in her chest. It spills out of her, quick and dirty, tears that streak her face even as she curls an arm at his neck and holds him close.

He puts her down, his hands coming up to cradle her face.

She swipes at the tears, opens her mouth to explain, but he must understand, he gets it; he just presses his mouth to hers in a kiss that seals them, binds them up.

His forehead to hers, his fingers stroking her cheeks, he lets out a long breath. "We're having a boy."

She hums, can't trust her own voice to speak when she's wrapped in this fragile web of joy.

She's going to have a little boy. She'll dress him in his Yankees jersey and take his hand and they'll go to the stadium together, sit side by side, and Castle will fall all over himself trying to buy them hot dogs and peanuts and a foam finger and everything a boy should have for his first baseball game.

"It's a boy," he murmurs again, sliding his arm down to circle her waist, bring her even closer. "A son."

Oh God. It's too much.

It's too much.

"Castle," she gets out, pressing her cheek hard into his, her palm curled at his neck.

"Yeah. Yeah." He's bowed into her; she feels his gratefulness like a weight.

She doesn't want him grateful. She just wants him - and their son. Their son.

"Castle, I'm gonna have to be the one to teach him how to throw a baseball, aren't I?"

He laughs then, breaking the spell, and his grip eases.

"Yeah. Yeah, Kate, you are," he says back, and his voice catches on her name.


End file.
